Basically we had 3 weeks of bone dry during June and then a thunderstorm rolled in the day before. Fields were just harvested and loads of farms were spreading leftovers from the pig farms as fertilizers. These farms are located upstream. Guess what happens when fields are bone dry, gets hit with heavy rainfall? It washes stuff off directly into the river. We swam in that.

Apparently there had been samples taken to verify the water quality, but they were taken the day before and early morning before the race. I know that river very well (white water kayaking at Slenningford Watermill) and can safely say we probably hit the exact start time when all the pi$$ arrived.

Generally the Ure is pretty clean and we very rarely have problems kayaking (and swimming when it goes wrong). This was just a perfectly timed bad incident. You'd have to be pretty unlucky for it to happen again so don't let that put you off.

On a normal day it's certainly a lot cleaner than the goose poo infested rowing lake at the Outlaw...
_________________Where the mind goes the body follows.

Last edited by Chrace on Thu Nov 08, 2018 12:24 pm; edited 1 time in total

I actually believe the organizers did ok and went by the book, despite some concerns from us who were there. They did the water samples and went by their readings. Just that local knowledge as waterways users some of us knew better (a couple more kayakers were present).

Please also note that this was the original Rubicon organizers who were genuinely brilliant at the event and NOT the BELLend who took over and ruined it all.
_________________Where the mind goes the body follows.